Multiple Parameter Estimation With Quantized Channel Output

The authors present a general problem formulation for optimal parameter estimation based on quantized observations, with application to antenna array communication and processing (channel estimation, Time-Of-Arrival (TOA) and Direction-Of-Arrival (DOA) estimation). The work is of interest in the case when low resolution A/D-Converters (ADCs) have to be used to enable higher sampling rate and to simplify the hardware. An Expectation-Maximization (EM) based algorithm is proposed for solving this problem in a general setting. Besides, they derive the Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) and discuss the effects of quantization and the optimal choice of the ADC characteristic.